Mind is the term often employed to signify all the faculties of the Souls. In this 17th April 1937 editorial of the Nigerian Provincial Guardian, the mind, as a subject, is applied to the intellectual faculties, in distinction from the moral; as the heart is being employed to denote the moral, in distinction from the intellectual. The following division is being allotted for easy comprehension: Perception, Reason, or Understanding. Judgement, Memory, and Imagination.
Perception
Perception is the faculty that receives ideas to the mind; as when one looks at a tree, immediately the idea of a tree is impressed on the mind through the sense of sight; or, when one touch an object, the idea of that object is impressed on the mind through the sense of touch.
Reason
The Reason or Understanding; is the faculty that considers, analyses, and compares ideas received into the mind, and form conclusions concerning them. For example, suppose one who has never seen a watch is presented with one, forms an idea respecting it as soon as his eyes fall upon it. Perhaps this idea is no more than that it is a very curious object. But immediately when one understands is employed in considering what is the perceptive faculty still being occupied in further discoveries. From the fact that there is motion one concludes there must be some power within it; for motion is not produced without power. Here are consideration and conclusion which form a regular operation of reason.
But to make further discoveries, one opens the watch to examine its parts. This is analysing. One examines all the parts that you can see. On removing the case, you still see motion, all the wheels moving in regular order, but the cause of the motion, the power that moves it is yet unseen. One perceives a chain wound around a wheel; and attached to another wheel around which it slowly winding itsel; and this chain appears to regulate the whole movement. One concludes that the power must be in the last named wheel. Here is a conclusion from analysing, or examining the parts separately.
Judgment
The judgment is the same as what is popularly styled common sense. It is that faculty which pronounces a decision, in view of all the information before the mind; in any given case, for example, if one wishes to determine what school one will attend, one will first obtain all the information one can, respecting the different schools that claim one’s attention. One considers and compares the advantages of each and decides according to the impression of comparative merits. The faculty which forms this decision is called the Judgment.
One will this readily perceive how very important this faculty is; for a person may be very learned, and yet a very great dunce in everything of a practical nature, if he fails in judgement or common sense, his learning will be of very little use to him, because he has on sense to use it to advantage.
Memory
The Memory is the faculty which retains the knowledge that is received into the mind. It may be compared to an immense closet, with a countless chamber and variety of shelves, drawer, and cells, in which articles are store d away for future use, only one of which can be examined by the proprietor at the same time and yet so arranged that he knows where to look for the article he wants. It is supposed that no impression once made upon the memory can be obliterated and yet the impression may not be called up for years. It lies there till some association of ideas brings it up again, the faculty not being able to present more than one object distinctly before the mind at the same instant.
Imagination
The imagination is that faculty which format pictures in the mind of real or unreal sense. It is the faculty that is exercised in fanciful plays and when the mind runs forward to the time that one expects to be engaged in the busy sense of life; and one pictures self, pleasures and employments in prospect. It is the faculty chiefly exercised by the poet and the writer of fiction.
